Observing a Second Lesson

Myself and Mia when back to the school on Friday to observe another lesson, this time we met a different teacher as they change throughout the week, it was good to see how the children interacted with a different teacher. The children had different subjects to the last time we observed them this day had a session in a sensory garden and a English lesson.

Hello

Once all the children were settled after playing they began the hello. On this particular day they had a colour and a smell to associate with that day. As it was Friday the smell they had was lavender and the colour was purple. This routine helps the children learn the days of the week by associating senses with words. They carried on with the same routine where each child had an individual hello like the last session.

Sensory Garden

After we finished the hello session we helped the teachers and TA's lead the children into the sensory garden. The sensory garden is a great place for the child to explore and feel different surfaces and textures like tarmac, AstroTurf, brick walls, chrome dome and wood foundations. Using board markers we helped the children draw the first letter of their name onto the chrome dome, some of the children really benefited from this task as it gets them to understand writing, Although some of the less able children found this difficult and lost interest quickly. The children spent a lot of time running around and touching as many surfaces as possible. Once the children found a texture they liked they spent most of the lesson feeling it. The children were given large chalk sticks which are easy to hold as they have limited grip, they used these to draw on the tarmac. The teachers created these plastic sheets which held paint between to sheets. This meant the children could move the paint and make shaped in it without actually getting covered in the paint itself.

English

For this lesson the children were split into two groups of four. One of the groups stayed in the classroom while the other along with myself and Mia headed of to the library. They split he children up and some were very hyper and needed to relax. The children that were hyper came to the library with two teachers myself and Mia. In the library they split the children up again so there were two children per teacher. The teachers read them stories using sensory books with lots of different textures so that the children could read and feel the textures at the same time. The also had a box with toy animals that made noises these tied into the stories.
 
It was very helpful to observe another lesson it really helped me to understand that the same children can react very differently depending on their mood. We found that the children were happier and move engaged on a Friday it was great to see them do different activity. Seeing how sensory the children were it has helped me understand that this we be a major factor we need to consider when planning out lesson.